Joining the Digital Age

TES Pharma is a small biotechnology company based in Corciano near Perugia, Italy, specializing in compound screening for pharmaceutical drug discovery. Combining an in depth knowledge of drug design and chemistry with systems and molecular biology approaches, the Company works collaboratively with partners around the world to combine the best aspects of academia and commercial pharmaceutical development.

TES Pharma’s small yet highly skilled and experienced team works closely with the University of Perugia to rapidly develop and explore novel compounds which may be of interest in various disease states. To standardize the Company’s workflow, as well as to free up more staff time for research activities, TES Pharma has recently invested in an HP D300 Digital Dispenser from Tecan. Graeme Robertson, a co-founder of TES Pharma, explained: “The drug discovery process is becoming increasingly highly specialized, often involving multiple partners with distinct skill sets working together to deliver novel therapeutic agents. Our core competence at TES Pharma lies in the development of advanced screening assays, and we believe that, by working closely with academic partners with expertise in individual conditions or disease areas, we can eliminate some of the drawbacks inherent in traditional drug discovery pipelines.”

“To do this we need to concentrate on our own expertise in core areas, and our HP D300 Digital Dispenser allows us to use our time more effectively, without compromising on results. As a small collaborative research facility we do not have a high enough throughput to effectively use complete laboratory automation systems, but the HP D300 is easy to use and its precision dispensing eliminates the need for tedious manual dilutions. Digital titration also offers several key advantages over traditional manual protocols in terms of reducing waste of valuable compounds, limiting the DMSO content for sensitive assays and increasing reproducibility, but it is the staff time it creates that is most important, liberating skilled individuals to perform more exploratory research. It also allows us to limit the number of variables in a way that would not be possible manually, helping us to rapidly characterize novel biological activities which might otherwise be missed.”

Researchers have now identified a small drug molecule that can clear the HSV-1 infection in the cells of the cornea -- the clear outer layer of the eyeball -- and works completely differently than the currently-available drugs, making it a promising potential option for patients who have developed resistance.

Researchers have published a study using an organ-on-a-chip (Organ Chip) model of the human gut that reveals the intestinal blood vessel cells may play an important part in radiation-induced intestinal injury, and it confirms that a potential radioprotective drug, dimethyloxaloylglycine (DMOG), suppresses the intestine’s responses to radiation injury.